Battle of Black Swamp

The Battle of Black Swamp was a skirmish that occurred in October of 1780 in York County, South Carolina between local patriot militiamen under Corporal Gabriel Martin and a small force of Green Dragoons under Banastre Tarleton. The action took place after Tarleton led a series of devastating raids against the homes of patriot famileis along the Santee River, and the ensuing battle saw Tarleton's dragoons kill all of the patriots, although Tarleton was the only survivor (in addition to being wounded) from the small detachment.

Guerrilla war on the Santee
Following the capture of the port city of Charleston in 1780 and the ensuing disaster at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, General Charles Cornwallis and the British Army occupied much of the state, forcing any patriot resistance to come in the form of partisan warfare. Colonel Benjamin Martin of York County waged a guerrilla war against the British forces with the assistance of Major Jean Villeneuve of the French 7th Light Foot. Martin and his son, Corporal Gabriel Martin, raised forces from along the Santee River in York County to tie Cornwallis down in South Carolina as George Washington and the Continental Army awaited the arrival of the French Navy to assist in the war against the British. The ensuing war saw the patriots ambush British supply convoys and pick off officers to create an environment of fear among the British, and their most daring attack came when they destroyed a British supply ship in the river off Middleton Place, where Cornwallis and the British command was holding a ball with the local Tory aristocracy.

Brutal tactics
Cornwallis' final embarrassment came when he was fooled into trading 18 captured patriots for 18 scarecrows in British uniforms, which Martin had stated were British officers. Cornwallis decided to employ the commander of the Green Dragoons, Banastre Tarleton, to exact revenge on Martin by capturing him and crushing the rebels, reluctantly condoning his ruthless tactics. Tarleton burnt down Martin's sister-in-law Charlotte Selton's plantation seven miles from Wakefield, South Carolina, after killing the local servants, believing that Martin's family had been hiding there. However, the arrival of both Benjamin Martin's cavalry and Gabriel Martin in person forced the dragoons to retreat from the raid, and Tarleton decided to break the resolve of the militia by burning down the homes of patriot families along the Santee. These acts of wanton brutality saw a church be burned to the ground with the whole populace of the town in it, and Corporal Gabriel Martin - whose newlywed wife Anne Howard and her family had been killed in the burning of the church - decided to lead a detachment of the militia to the old Spanish mission at Black Swamp to encounter Tarleton's cavalry force, which had taken over the former base of the patriots there.

Battle
The 10-or-so British dragoons under Tarleton had been relaxing at the old Spanish mission in Black Swamp (Tarleton was shaving at the time) when Captain Bordon, who was on watch duty, spotted approaching horsemen and told his men to take up their arms. The American militia assaulted the British dragoons in the camp after dismounting, and the fierce Tarleton drew his saber and killed several militiamen himself. Martin killed Captain Bordon with the assistance of Reverend Oliver, who pushed the captain onto Gabriel's drawn knife, but at the cost of his own life; Tarleton shot Oliver, who had originally intended to shoot Tarleton with his musket. Oliver tossed his loaded musket to Martin as he fell, and Martin shot Tarleton in the chest, wounding him. At this point, they were the only two men left at the scene of the battle. Martin took a knife and headed to finish Tarleton off, but Tarleton rolled over and stabbed Martin through the chest with his saber, killing him. A wounded Tarleton proceeded to mount a horse and return to Cornwallis' camp, ending the small skirmish.

Aftermath
Benjamin Martin and his militia arrived too late to fight in the battle, but he was able to cradle his mortally wounded son in his arms until he died of his wounds. Martin considered leaving the Continental Army, as he had lost his oldest son Gabriel in the battle after losing his fifteen-year-old son earlier that year when Tarleton shot him through the heart as he tried to save Gabriel from capture by some dragoons. However, he was persuaded to fight for his son's memory, and Martin would assist in the great victory at the Battle of Cowpens before helping in Cornwallis' repeated defeats on his way north to Virginia.